Part I – Written Assignment
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to show mastery of the materials in this course. Completing the materials for this learning outcome should take you approximately: 3 hours. Objectives
Upon successful completion of the materials for this learning outcome, you will be able to:
SLO7: Evaluate an organization’s existing approach to leading diversity and inclusion
Tasks
Part I of the course project is worth 100 points.
In addition to other listed requirements, you must make 80% or higher on the project to successfully pass this course.
Part I: Written Assignment – Organizational Analysis of Leading Diversity & Inclusion Strategies
ASSIGNMENT: For Part I of your project, choose an organization from any industry where sufficient information can be obtained in a scholarly manner that will support your ability to successfully assess the organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategies. Then, prepare a multimedia presentation (e.g., PowerPoint) that answers the below prompts and follows listed instructions for each topic slide. Include a separate slide for each prompt – more than one may be used for each topic if needed. Use proper grammar and be sure to proofread several times prior to submitting to catch small errors. In general, most every response should be provided in narrative format using full and complete sentences. Bullet points should be used sparingly, but may be used in some circumstances when providing longer responses. In such cases, provide bullets to introduce the idea and place the corresponding narrative in the notes section. The use of direct quotes should be extremely limited – most all of your narrative should contain original and/or paraphrased text.
NOTES: Please take time to carefully read the requirements and notes for each slide. The closer you are when finished to hitting each of these requirements, the more likely you will receive a passing score on the first submission attempt. To further help you be successful on your first submission, there is a list of instructor-informed tips for success that can be found following these instructions that provides helpful advice on how to prevent multiple resubmissions (if submitted in time for review) or not meeting expectations on the first attempt (if submitted too late for review and resubmission). You will genuinely find there is a direct relationship between the level of effort you provide toward meeting these instructions and tips with how well you maximize points during the instructor’s assessment. To that end, you are encouraged to follow these instructions, notes, and tips with sincere and deliberate intention toward maximizing every available point.
While this assignment is designed more as a presentation than a “formally written paper,” please note you are still required to present information in a well organized (headings, subheadings) and logical (clear and makes sense) manner and you must absolutely still provide appropriate APA citations and references for anything that serves as the source for any thought, idea, concept, data, etc. you used in formulating your responses. All citations must be provided in strict accordance with the requirements of APA (7th ed.). For reminders or initial assistance regarding when, what, and how to cite using the APA style, please consult first the APA manual, OWL Perdue, and/or any other of the many online sources that are available to you at no cost. Even seasoned academic writers and researchers must consult these resources when completing their manuscriipts, so there is no need to memorize every aspect – simply consult the guidelines and mirror those formats and structures when creating your in-text citations and references.
WARNINGS: While clearly not the majority, it is not uncommon for some students to provide minimal effort in their first submission with the belief they will be told exactly what to put in their second submission to pass without much added effort. Please note this course is competency-based and a level of demonstrated mastery is required to successfully pass every assignment. As such, your first submission should represent your best initial effort so the feedback provided is more clear, direct, and relevant. This also helps to better situate your first submission to stand alone should some issue occur and you miss future opportunities to resubmit after instructor feedback. Unfortunately, way too many students over the years have learned the hard way that a minimalist strategy does not ultimately prove successful in every course. Please let your instructor legitimately help you succeed in this course by providing them your best efforts from the start so they can guide your efforts more appropriately. Please help them to help you!
SLIDE TITLES, PROMPTS, & INSTRUCTIONS
Title
On this slide, provide an applicable title that includes your name, the organization’s name, course information, and submission date.
Organization
On this slide, identify and describe the organization in sufficient enough detail as to permit a person unfamiliar with the organization to understand the general nature and basic purpose of its operations (e.g., what kind of business, type of industry, etc.). Be clear, informative, and succinct. NOTE: This section will require at least one in-text citation with a corresponding reference listed on the last slide to properly support your statements and provide proper attribution for the information you considered or consulted when formulating your response. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words and/or paraphrased from information developed from referenced sources. As such, you must still cite your sources in the text. You should not solely use bullets on this slide. Your response should not contain any direct quotes. Introduction
On this slide, provide a brief, professional biography about yourself. Discuss your leadership experiences with diverse groups.
NOTE: While being informative is great, please be mindful that this question does not call for sensitive personal information. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words. You should not need to use bullets on this slide.
DEI Vision
On this slide, discuss the organization’s stated vision as it relates to their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). If it has a DEI vision statement, then provide it on this slide as well. If one is not stated, then discuss what steps you took to find it. Discuss any initiatives that are listed by the organization toward DEI initiatives and/or practices or discuss the absence of them.
NOTE: This section will require at least one in-text citation with a corresponding reference listed on the last slide to properly support your statements and provide proper attribution for the information you considered or consulted when formulating your response. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words and/or paraphrased from information developed from referenced sources. As such, you must still cite your sources in the text. You should not solely use bullets on this slide. If bullets are used on the slide, then keep them topical and place the lengthy related narrative in the notes section. Your response may contain a direct quote to capture the vision statement.
Leadership
On this slide, describe and discuss the make-up of the organization’s top-level leadership team. Discuss how these persons do or do not internally and/or externally communicate their personal commitments and/or philosophies about DEI leadership. Discuss what this tells you about their commitment to leading diverse and inclusive teams. Once you have compiled all relevant information about this topic, take time to properly analyze and reflect upon the information you discovered. Discuss what this information tells your audience about the organization’s commitment to leading diverse and inclusive teams. Discuss what evidence specifically supports your conclusions. Ensure that you clearly connect the dots between your assertions and the evidence provided so your audience will not fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. NOTE: This section will require at least one in-text citation with a corresponding reference listed on the last slide to properly support your statements and provide proper attribution for the information you considered or consulted when formulating your response. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words and/or paraphrased from information developed from referenced sources. As such, you must still cite your sources in the text. You should not solely use bullets on this slide. If bullets are used on the slide, then keep them topical and place the lengthy related narrative in the notes section. Your response should not contain any direct quotes.
Training
On this slide, discuss what training is provided to employees as it relates to improving DEI within the organization or the absence of such information. Discuss whether such training is mandatory or voluntary. Discuss any information the organization provides regarding the success and/or failure of their DEI-related training. Discuss might this compare to other national data involving organizations in the same or a similar industry. Once you have compiled all relevant information about this topic, take time to properly analyze and reflect upon what you discovered. Discuss what this information tells your audience about the organization’s commitment to leading diverse and inclusive teams. Discuss what evidence specifically supports your conclusions. Ensure that you clearly connect the dots between your assertions and the evidence provided so your audience will not fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. NOTE: This section will require at least one in-text citation with a corresponding reference listed on the last slide to properly support your statements and provide proper attribution for the information you considered or consulted when formulating your response. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words and/or paraphrased from information developed from referenced sources. As such, you must still cite your sources in the text. You should not solely use bullets on this slide. If bullets are used on the slide, then keep them topical and place the lengthy related narrative in the notes section. Your response should not contain any direct quotes.
Data
On this slide, discuss any information developed regarding demographics of employees in recent years. Describe what information can be found regarding race, ethnicity, gender, disability, etc. If no information is available, explain all steps that were taken to locate the information. Once you have compiled all relevant information about this topic, take time to properly analyze and reflect upon the information you discovered. Discuss what this information tells your audience about the organization’s commitment to leading diverse and inclusive teams. Discuss what evidence specifically supports your conclusions. Ensure that you clearly connect the dots between your assertions and the evidence provided so your audience will not fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. NOTE: This section will require at least one in-text citation with a corresponding reference listed on the last slide to properly support your statements and provide proper attribution for the information you considered or consulted when formulating your response. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words and/or paraphrased from information developed from referenced sources. As such, you must still cite your sources in the text. You should not solely use bullets on this slide. If bullets are used on the slide, then keep them topical and place the lengthy related narrative in the notes section. Your response should not contain any direct quotes.
Assessment
On this slide, discuss whether or not you believe the organization is fulfilling its stated commitment to leading diverse and inclusive teams. Here, summarize your findings from the previous slides, then explain why you do or do not believe the organization is fulfilling its commitment. Discuss what evidence specifically supports your conclusions. Ensure that you clearly connect the dots between your assertions and the evidence you provide so your audience will not fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. NOTE: This section will require at least one in-text citation with a corresponding reference listed on the last slide to properly support your statements and provide proper attribution for the information you considered or consulted when formulating your response. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words and/or paraphrased from information developed from referenced sources. As such, you must still cite your sources in the text. You should not solely use bullets on this slide. If bullets are used on the slide, then keep them topical and place the lengthy related narrative in the notes section. Your response should not contain any direct quotes.
Recommendations
On this slide, discuss what strategies you might recommend to the organization’s leadership team to help them further advance or improve their leadership of diverse team members. Discuss what evidence specifically supports your recommendation. Ensure that you clearly connect the dots between your assertions and the evidence provided so your audience will not fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. In other words, tell them some proven strategy they can use to successfully advance and/or improve some aspect of at least one focus area from your assessment on the previous slide. Your recommendation must include some level of proof or validation for why that recommendation should work in that organization’s particular set of circumstances.
NOTE: This section will require at least one in-text citation with a corresponding reference listed on the last slide to properly support your statements and provide proper attribution for the information you considered or consulted when formulating your response. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words and/or paraphrased from information developed from referenced sources. As such, you must still cite your sources in the text. You should not solely use bullets on this slide. If bullets are used on the slide, then keep them topical and place the lengthy related narrative in the notes section. Your response should not contain any direct quotes.
Conclusion
On this slide, discuss a proper conclusion that captures the essence of what you are trying to communicate in the presentation regarding the organization’s approach to leading diverse and inclusive teams. Provide an overview of each of the preceding slides to capture the “big picture” in a succinct synopsis. In other words, briefly tell your audience again in a clear and direct manner what you have been telling them in your presentation. This can be as easy as providing one sentence for each of the main topic slides compiled into one well-aligned paragraph that basically condenses everything into narrative form that you have presented.
NOTE: This section will require at least one in-text citation with a corresponding reference listed on the last slide to properly support your statements and provide proper attribution for the information you considered or consulted when formulating your response. All information on this slide should be written in narrative form in your own words and/or paraphrased from information developed from referenced sources. As such, you must still cite your sources in the text. You should not solely use bullets on this slide. If bullets are used on the slide, then keep them topical and place the lengthy related narrative in the notes section. Your response should not contain any direct quotes.
References
On this slide, provide references in alphabetical order that correspond to the in-text citations you used within the previous slides. All references should be provided in proper format using APA (7th ed.). From the instructions provided in the preceding slides, it should be apparent that this slide will contain several APA-styled references.
NOTE: Consult the APA guidelines for each reference/in-text citation you provide as there are specific requirements and styles for each types. There are many APA resources, including OWL Perdue, that provide you with very specific examples of how to format these sources correctly. Aside from very limited scenarios that you will likely not encounter for this assignment, there should not be any reason for these not to be incredibly close to being accurate.
Instructor Pro Tips
Ensure your slides are presented logically, neatly, and professionally. Creativity helps in the long-run, but that is up to you and your preferences and capabilities.
Ensure your presentation includes at least one slide per topic listed above – In this case, no less than 11 slides.
Do not overcrowd information on each slides – A slide itself should never include 2,000 words. Bullets are permissible only when lengthy items are being provided. In such cases, a bullet to identify the item topically should be provided on the slide with the related narrative provided below in the notes section.
Written narratives should include full and complete sentences with proper grammar and punctuation.
Proofread multiple times for spelling, grammar, and comprehension. Sometimes reading it aloud to yourself in a quiet place helps to identify errors of information that sounds confusing when read. It might also be helpful to have another trusted source review it to further ensure there are no minor issues remaining with spelling or grammar. As they read it, they can also tell you if something sounds confusing. Always proofread again after editing. After proofreading, proofread again.
Unless a subjective opinion is called for within the instructions, then every sentence should be an objective and necessary statement that is grounded in some legitimate and factual basis.
Every sentence and/or group of related sentences should be provable by pointing directly to some attributable source. In other words, you must qualify every comment, statement, and/or remark. Especially in a global world when speaking to a global audience, it is generally safer (even more so at the undergraduate level) to provide some level of citation and attribution for nearly everything you write and say in academic writing (minus very limited exceptions or writing types). There is a unique line between what is and what is not considered common knowledge.
Remember, please do not make assumptions unless called for in the instructions – stick to provable facts. Just because we want to believe something is most likely accurate does not mean we can say it with academic or professional certainty. Think about all the times an organizational leader has made some assertion about staff members because we would generally expect that to be true in a perfect world just to learn they made an assumption that was wrong – it is sometimes hard to recover from such missteps in the real world. As such, we should practice the same fundamentals in these courses. The best way to overcome issues with this concept is to examine every sentence independently by asking if what you wrote is an objective fact or subjective assumption.
Example: A student once commented on a similar assignment involving an ambiguous video of potential workplace discrimination that the manager involved had not acted inappropriately because they would have treated every other employee the same way regardless of their race or gender in similar circumstances. While we WANT to be believe that is always true, we are not qualified to make such statements without proof. The only way the student could legitimately make such a statement with any level of academic or professional confidence is if they had personally witnessed every such similar encounter with that manager or if someone had conducted a review of all the managers records with Human Resources and published a supporting report. Even then, the student could only legitimately say that based upon some explicit level of evidence or observation that there was no reported or observed history of such behaviors. While this may seem very minor, words do clearly have important meanings and what you say in the real world in such matters can have notable consequences, especially if it becomes a matter for the courts. It is for these reasons that we practice such things in these courses. Part II: Video Assignment
Assignment
Task: Submit to complete this assignment
Part II – Video Assignment
Purpose
The purpose of the assignment is to show mastery of the course materials. Completing the materials for this learning outcome should take you approximately: 3 hours. Objectives
Upon successful completion of the materials for this learning outcome, you will be able to:
SLO8: Create a personalized diversity action plan
Tasks
Part II of the course project is worth 100 points.
In addition to other listed requirements, you must make 80% or higher on the project to successfully pass this course.
Part II: Video Assignment – Personalized Diversity Action Plan
In the second part, you will make a video that discusses your current views on leading diverse and inclusive teams. The video should be approximately 5-7 minutes. In this video, please respond to the following:
Discuss why team diversity and inclusion is important for teams.
Discuss what changes you will incorporate into your own leadership practices relating to diverse and inclusive teams.
Describe how you will measure success when leading diverse and inclusive teams and what you would do if your efforts are not proving successful.
How has your race, ethnicity, and professional identity influenced your responses to these questions?
NOTES: The purpose of Part II is to help improve communication skills, and it should be designed to mimic how you would present information to classmates as part of an oral presentation if this course were offered in a traditional face-to-face format. Making the Video
Please use any video capturing tools that you are comfortable using for this portion of the project (see notes below). This can even be as simple as capturing the video on your computer camera and submitting the MP4 file or uploading it to a shared drive. You can also add it as a YouTube channel or submit the MP4 directly in the submission folder. Please be sure to upload the link to the submission folder if using an external platform.
Once complete, you can also use Panopto to upload your video file (either a .mov or .mp4) as an assignment. If using this method, you will have to grant your instructor access to the video. If you have problems uploading the video or accessing the platform, place the URL to your online video into an MS Word document and upload the MS Word document as your assignment.
NOTES:
Please do not create video using an iPhone or Mac. These devices are often incompatible with TAMUC systems and will result in you having to complete them again using a different method.
If using a shared folder, YouTube, etc. that provide viewing restrictions, please be sure they are turned off or grant your instructor access to view them. Failure to do so often results in delays in their assessment.
You will not receive full credit if your presentation is less than 5 minutes in length or if you cannot be clearly seen and heard using common and widely available video viewing applications . Panopto Video Tool
Panopto is a video platform used by students to record, edit, store and share lecture videos, class presentations, and assignments. Panopto also allows students to capture their own videos and upload them for assignments or group projects. If needed, this platform may be used to finalize and upload the video assignments. Access to Panopto is provided in the next section of this module.
Grading
Part II of the course project will be assessed using the assigned rubric. Please review the rubric within the Culminating Project descriiption in ASSIGNMENTS under the ACTIVITIES tab.
Panopto Video
Panopto
Panopto is a video platform used by students to record, edit, store and share lecture videos, class presentations, and assignments. Panopto also allows students to capture their own videos and upload them for assignments or group projects. This platform may be used to finalize and upload video assignments, if needed.
The following playlist comprises 24 video tutorials covering various functional aspects of Panopto, including how to create, search, and submit video assignments.
Panopto Video Tutorials
NOTE: Please be sure to review the assignment instructions prior to submission to ensure you have met all requirements.